• DandomRude@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    A perfectly legitimate question, especially since this misleading approach is precisely why Amazon’s Mechanical Turk is named like that.

    The Mechanical Turk, also known as the Automaton Chess Player, was a fraudulent chess-playing machine built by Wolfgang von Kempelen in 1770. It appeared to play chess autonomously but was actually operated by a skilled human chess player hidden inside. (Source)

    I don’t know the answer, but I assume that it probably has something to do with money and power…

    • notthebees@reddthat.com
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      4 days ago

      I don’t think it’s exactly the same. If I used MT to label data for AI/ML, that would be one thing. If I used MT to complete tasks and calling their effort AI, that would be fraud.

      • DandomRude@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        Yes, that’s true. I just find it funny that Amazon named this line of business after a fraudulent device. For some of the things you can do with it, it’s probably quite the fitting name.